


The Hounds' Hound

by Ignicula



Category: God Eater (Video Games), God Eater 3
Genre: But the dog is so cute he eventually gets away with it, Dogs being dogs, Male MC is harassed by a dog
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:14:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24134935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ignicula/pseuds/Ignicula
Summary: An escort mission brings a dog onboard the Chrysanthemum. Perhaps the behavior of Mr. Sleepypaws the Cat should've been all the warning they needed.In other words: The Hounds escort a dog and dog owner to another port and the dog is insufferable but eventually the cuteness lets him get away with it.
Kudos: 27





	The Hounds' Hound

**Author's Note:**

> I swear I don't hate dogs, I know a lot of them very well and they're adorable enough to get away will all the sh*t they pull (sometimes literally). They're just... let's call it free-spirited creatures that aren't always as easy to train as one might think.

To the Hounds, escort missions were nothing particularly new. They had escorted the Chrysanthemum all the way across Europe by this point and picked up more people to escort along the way every now and again. The only thing different this time had to be the plus one their client was bringing along.

“Is that… a dog?” Hugo asks as the man walks onto the bridge with the yapping creature straining against its leash, tail waving around in the same manner a frantic new God Eater would swing their god arc at their first aragami. On the captain’s chair, Sleepypaws jerks awake, hisses, and runs.

To one Luca Pennywort, this should have been the first and only warning he needed.

“Oh, hello.” The man says kindly. “I take it you’re the leader of the Hounds?”

Luca sticks slightly behind Hugo, watching the excited animal warily. It pants, tongue lolling out of its mouth while its huge goofy eyes take in the surroundings.

_ It’s kind of cute _ , he realizes as it looks up at him with its head tilted to the side, droopy ears flopping about. “Woof!”

“Yes, I am,” Hugo responds. “My name is Hugo Pennywort.” His eyes drift to the dog. “We weren’t told that you were bringing a… companion.”

“Woof woof!”

“Ah, yes, I’m very sorry about this but this was sprung on me at the last minute.” The man says apologetically. “His name is Cordi and he’s a very good dog. I swear he won’t cause any trouble, but I couldn’t find anyone to take care of him while I was away.”

“I see…” Hugo studies it. The tail just keeps on wagging as if it’s on a motor and Luca wonders if the creature will ever tire of swinging it about like a bludgeon. “I suppose it won’t harm anything, but I’ll have to double check with Hilda first.”

“Oh, thank you!” The man says with a relieved look on his face. “You’re a lifesaver.”

As he says that, the grip on the dog’s leash is evidently loosened enough for the dog to lunge out of his grip and jump up with its forepaws on Luca’s stomach and lick him  _ right  _ in the face before he can think to defend himself.

_ Gross. _

“Oh, no! Cordi,  _ down!” _

“Wauuu…” The dog whines, dropping to the ground. It looks hopefully up at Luca with a few imploring barks and Hugo just sits there and laughs like the traitor he is.

“Looks like he likes you, Luca!”

_ The feeling isn’t mutual. _

_ I’m getting a bad feeling about this already. _

O

Waking up in the middle of the night to the sound of an alarm blaring is nothing new. Aragami don’t care whether the sun is up or not when they attack. No, the unusual part is when, after he scrambles out of bed, he can’t find his shoes.

He knows he left them right there at the foot of the bed, he’s a very organized person who never leaves anything where it’s not supposed to go, and everyone else’s shoes are right where they’re supposed to be. So while everyone else rushes to God Arc storage Luca finds himself with the rather embarrassing task of trying to locate his footwear.

He quickly deduces that they are not anywhere in the male dorm, which immediately sets alarm bells ringing. All he can do is put on socks and search the rest of the Ash Crawler.

He starts in the showers, the only other place he might’ve taken them off and forgotten to move them. When they’re not there, he starts to get suspicious. He rushes to the female dorm in case someone took them there by accident, startling Lulu as she seems to be tearing her room apart barefoot as well.

“Oh, Luca.” She gasps in surprise when she sees him. “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my shoes anywhere, have you?”

He shakes his head. “Have you seen mine?”

“So it’s not just me.” She sounds strangely relieved by the discovery. “Why  _ now _ of all times?”

The intercom buzzes. “Um, Luca, Lulu, could you head to God Arc storage to get your weapons?”

“Ah, screw it! Claire and I have the same size of shoes!” Lulu grabs a pair of Claire’s shoes from under the other girl’s bunk. “I’ll tell them you’ll be up shortly!” And then she’s off.

Luca grits his teeth in frustration.  _ Where in the ashlands could they have gone? _

He finds his answer when he heads down the elevator and notices the usually-closed doors to the storage containers hanging wide open. The door to the God Arc storage opens and Hugo pokes his head out. “Oh, Luca, there you are! Wait, why are you barefoot?”

Luca doesn’t deign to answer this question, instead noticing strange prints on the ground leading to the door. A suspicion builds up in his mind and he narrows his eyes, walking into the room.

And, lo and behold, just inside the door is a slavering animal drooling all over his only pair of shoes.

Not only are they covered in drool, he’s dismayed to find that they barely even resemble  _ shoes  _ anymore. Lulu’s shoes are in very much the same shape next to them, covered in toothmarks and dog drool. The hound itself looks up at Luca, wags its tail, and woofs innocently like nothing is wrong. It pants and gives him those huge eyes in an attempt to be cute, tail  _ still  _ wagging behind it.

“Luca, are you…  _ Oh _ .”

Hugo has entered the room behind him, and Luca is thankful that he’s seen it for himself so Luca doesn’t have to try to explain this. Instead he just glares death at the animal, which never stops looking excited. After a moment it turns back to his shoe, bites into the material, and shakes its head. With a loud rip more of Luca’s shoe comes off and is spat across the room.

_ Time to go get my God Arc. _

“Um… I’m so sorry about this Luca. You’ll have to sit this mission out. I’ll have a talk with Hilda and our dear client when we get back and we’ll get you new shoes at the next port.”

He glares death at the dog, then turns and walks out of the storage container, stalking up to the elevator. He is  _ not  _ happy in any way shape or form.

As he heads over, he spots a clump of orange fur sitting on top of one of the crates. Sleepypaws gives him a look as if to say ‘I told you so’ before he lays his head back down and goes to sleep.

Luca decides right away that he’s more of a cat person than a dog person. He reaches out and scratches Sleepypaws between the ears. The cat purrs, and with his rage somewhat calmed Luca returns to the dorm. 

He’ll be having a few words with Cordi’s owner later to ask just what he meant by ‘very good dog’ whenever the man decides to grace them with his presence on the bridge.

O

The man assures him that this has never happened before, apologizes profusely, and swears it will never happen again.

Somehow, Luca doesn’t believe him.

O

The second incident is when he and the others try to go to bed after a long day of work to find that there’s a big grown turd right in front of the dormitory’s door. Luca is less than amused, but the dog doesn’t seem to think it’s done anything wrong. It just sits there, panting excitedly with its tail  _ still  _ wagging as if asking them how they like the  _ present  _ it left.

His owner groans and plants his face in his hand, bemoaning his fate. Luca turns to Hugo.

“Permission to change our name to something other than ‘hounds’?”

“Denied.”

Dammit.

O

The next few days turn into days of mopping up feces from random places around the ash crawler and making a list of things that need to be replaced, such as shoes, blankets, and anything else the dog can fit in its mouth. Their pantries are raided twice by a hungry snacking creature before Amy lays down the law and starts locking the doors to the kitchens at night so the clever creature can’t get the doors open, and when it stops being able to get into as much trouble the  _ howling  _ starts.

Luca doesn’t know how Hugo and the others sleep through it. He supposes he should be thankful that the dog stopped him from having to work before it proceeded to keep him up all night with its incessant noise, but it’s very hard to be thankful when he’s so sleep-deprived he might pass out at any second. He decides that if Hugo won’t change their name from The Hounds, he’ll at least ask Amy to call him by his name in the field instead of Hound One. If she does it for the others she should at least give him the same treatment, especially if  _ the thing  _ is what he’s always being compared to in the field.

O

As it turns out, the owner is really no better than the dog because now Luca has a cold and  _ guess who gave it to him. _

He’s resting in the infirmary to sleep it off in a place where he won’t infect everyone else - they’re still able to go on missions after all. 

The door pops open seemingly of its own accord, and he rolls his eyes with a groan as he heads paws clicking their way across the floor.  _ It’s the animal. _

“Wauu.” The dog whines at him, and he sees its big sad eyes staring at him, ears drooping. It reaches over with its nose and pokes him in the arm.

It’s cold and wet, and the dog isn’t cute for worrying about him. It isn’t at all.

He coughs into his arm, and the dog reaches over with its head, nosing him for a moment before jumping up and replacing his pillow.

Luca gives it a scandalized look. “What do you think  _ you’re  _ doing?”

The dog licks him a few times, whining in concern. Luca glares at it and then sighs.

“Fine, you can stay.”

He lies back down and immediately decides the dog is a better pillow than his actual pillow. It’s fluffy and warm and so-much-softer than the pillow he’d previously been using. The dog lies its head down and watches him with its huge droopy eyes, tail thumping against the bed, and Luca wishes he wasn’t so easy to win over. 

O

He wishes he wasn’t so easy to win over even more later when Amy decides to pin a picture of him sleeping with the fluffy white animal as a pillow on the chrysanthemum’s ‘picture wall’ later. Hugo thinks it’s adorable. Zeke will never let him live it down. 

Luca will never admit to his slight fondness for dogs afterwards, but it’s there. Maybe they’re destructive creatures, but they’re so cute and friendly when it matters that he can’t actually stay mad at them. 

The same can’t be said for Sleepypaws, who won’t return to sleeping anywhere near where a dog can reach him for weeks after the dog leaves. As it turns out he hates dogs like the plague and that will never change.

**Author's Note:**

> And there you have it, they've finally met a real dog.


End file.
